Byrd – Book Review

Dear Byrd, This is how I told your father. We climbed up on his roof. We could see the ocean, wrinkles of light in the distance. I was wearing a billowy cotton skirt. I wanted to look soft, unthreatening, unselfconsciously pretty. I wanted your father to love me. My legs were pale, not used to sun in winter. I had painted my toenails lavender. I wanted him to be a little sorry he hadn’t love me all along. – from Byrd –

Addie Lockwood meets Roland Rhodes when they are young and impressionable. Growing up in a small Southern town in the 1970s, they connect briefly and then go their separate ways, only to re-connect in Venice Beach, California years later. Roland is a wannabe musician and Addy is a bookstore clerk. When Addy becomes pregnant, it is clear that Roland does not love her nor want to be a father. So when a botched abortion results in Addy giving birth to a son, she decides to surrender him for adoption without telling Roland.

Written in spare prose that packs an emotional punch, Byrd is about regret and motherhood and finding happiness in the small spaces. Kim Church has written poetry and short stories before publishing this debut novel, and her beautiful prose is a testament to finding just the right words to reel the reader into a story.

Addie writes letters to her child, who she named Byrd because she wanted a “name no one else would ever call you.” Her letters fill in the gaps in her life, and reveal a deep love for a son whom she has never known. Addie is a woman searching for meaning and love, grasping at small moments where she thinks happiness may be found. Roland is unreachable, a puzzle, an emotional void for Addie. But the reader learns more about him as Church peels back the layers of a sensitive and emotionally vulnerable man.

Byrd is one of those books that resonate when the reader turns the final page. There is an ache of loneliness, the sting of regret…and finally a burst of hope that makes the journey through Addie’s life well worth it. Church’s insight into the human psyche, her understanding of the struggle to make sense of past mistakes and difficult choices, is deeply provocative.

Readers who love spare, literary fiction which is riveting in its exploration of the human heart, will want to pick up a copy of this amazing novel.

Highly recommended.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher for review on my blog.